To Serve And Protect

I posted that two pages ago

#blackpeoplespostsmatter

 

LMAO Just call me Elvis or Eminem. You post it and I'll win Poster of the Year by recycling it.

Seriously, I fell off the grid for a bit and haven't kept up. I'm back now and will take credit for all your future posts. #TheKing #SlimShady

 

I don't always agree with Kareem, but I do appreciate his POV and his take. He clearly has a great deal of insight into issues of race and an interest in humans interacting with one another in positive ways. Sagely.

 

And another.

At some point, this pattern can't be excused or rationalized away

"
Black cop kills Black man during NJ traffic stop.



Yesterday, footage from a police dashcam was released showing the murder of Jerame Reid by New Jersey police officers. The cop who pulled the trigger is Black.

Officer Braheme Days can be heard to shout at Mr Reid “Show me your hands” and “If you reach for something, you’re going to be f***ing dead.”

In the footage, taken from the police dashcam, the officer, who is black, also appears to reach into the car and remove what appears to be a handgun.

(source)

When Michael Brown was shot, a lot of the conversation centered around whether or not Darren Wilson was racist. When Eric Garner was choked, the same conversation was had about Daniel Pantoleo. Police shootings of Black men are never about that one interaction between that one cop and that one victim — it’s about living in a country where Black men are dangerous, period.

Warning: This is video from the dashcam and it shows Jerame Reid being murdered without editting or censoring.



I can’t tell what’s going on. I don’t know why Jerame Reid decided to get out of the car and we can only speculate what happened. At some point, the glove compartment was opened exposing a gun (the driver was asked for his license/registration and maybe that’s where he kept it), and Officer Days completely overreacted. Under New Jersey law, guns are allowed in cars if they’ve been properly registered, so why would an officer start screaming at a passenger just because he saw a gun in the glove compartment? Would two white men have faced the same attitude?

At that point, the situation had already escalated past the normal traffic stop and the only way to handle it is to be completely still and silent. However, that’s easy to say when you’re not in the actual situation. Until you’ve been faced with police aggression, you don’t know how you’d react. Some people freeze, some people panic, and some people question authority. I’m not sure which of those happened to Reid, but obviously he didn’t freeze. It appears to me that Officer Days repeatedly attempted to open the car door which must have been locked. We’ll never know what Reid was doing in the car, but if he was attempting to unlock it and Days kept pulling on it, the door would’ve continued to jam. Once Days stopped pulling on the handle, the door unlocked, and Reid stepped out of the car as was originally instructed. Officer Days opened fire and now Jerame Reid is dead.

I don’t see this playing out the same way if Jerame Reid and the driver had been white. When Officer Days saw the gun, he may have been more likely to ask a white man “Is that gun properly registered?” or “Are you licensed to carry that gun in the glove compartment?” as opposed to screaming at the other officer that there was a gun in the car. Obviously, this isn’t racism the way people like to think of racism, but this is the racism that affects all of us. It’s that indoctrination into the belief that Black people are always up to no good. If a Black man has a gun in the car, it must be stolen or he must be a criminal and the situation is therefore dangerous in some way. None of us are immune to it because we’re fed the same images from birth by the media, by the news, and by all forms of entertainment. When you take those predispositions and add them to the police training in this country that makes all cops paranoid gun freaks, it’s a recipe for dead Black men regardless of the cop’s race. Our cops shoot multiple rounds to kill. Our cops shoot first and ask questions later. Our cops are average Americans who have preconceived notions about how dangerous Black people are. Therefore, our cops continue to kill Black people when white people in identical situations would still be alive.

This is what systematic racism looks like. It’s not about Darren Wilson or Daniel Pantoleo hating Black people. It’s about all of us — regardless of race — being victims of the same brainwashing passed down through generations, and that’s why all of us — regardless of race — have to be cognizant of that fact in order to examine our own individual prejudices."

http://soletstalkabout.com/post/108829532625/black-cop-kills-black-man-during-nj-traffic-stop

 

I don't see it playing out the same way since the cop is black. If he had been white, Sharpton, Obama, Jesse, Holder, protests, and riots. But he's black, so this will be a non-story.

I saw this video a couple days ago and I just see it differently. Cop tells you to not move -- you don't move. Plain and simple. I don't know if he was resisting, reaching, or just sitting there. Based on what the cop is saying, I would bet he was doing more then just sitting still. But we may never know. But for the sake of the community and the cop, I'm glad he's black. Otherwise we'd have more rioting and his life and career would be over.

 

No offense taken as I hope you've not been offended by anything I've said or posted.

As a cop, I understand how this topic might be offensive to you, but this post shows the disconnect from understanding where I'm coming from on this topic. Show you STATS? There is no stat that shows when a cop could have shot someone and decided not to. There is no stat that shows when a cop decided to shoot someone he could have just arrested. So once again, the topic is not that cops are shooting black people, it's that cops are disproportionately shooting black people in situations when they don't need to. In situations that don't warrant it. In situations that could have been handled without death because the black person is unarmed. You think black people are getting killed the same as everyone else? Ok, prove it. I've posted a ton of videos, articles, stories over these past few pages showing all these shootings and assaults that were sketchy at best since last October. Whites commit the majority of the crimes in this country, so show me even as many of the number of unarmed white people shot and killed in sketchy situations since October as what I've shown over these past few pages. Try as you may, you will not be able to find as many even though, there should be more than Black shootings in these situations. Why? Because cops are more likely to jump straight to shooting when dealing with black people.

This isn't an opinion I hold because I saw the news and some black people getting assaulted or killed. It's not an article I read from some left wing news site. I hold the opinion that black people are disproportionately getting attacked and/or killed in situations that don't warrant it because these types of things have happened to me. They have happened to my family. They have happened to my friends. They have happened to people I know personally and people I trust to be able to rationally discern right from wrong and evaluate a situation. When they tell me about almost getting shot in situations that don't warrant it, or being thrown to the ground or beaten when not committing a crime or resisting arrest, I believe their story. Their stories are corroborated by nearly every black person in the US. Black people that haven't experienced this have friends and family that has. Black police officers have corroborated that even they are scared at how they might be treated by other police officers while off duty. This should be the end to the debate. A whole ethnicity, regardless of socioeconomic background, geographic location, and ages is telling you the same thing. That we are having experiences where the police, often times, are treating us differently than how we see them treating other ethnicities. Talk first with them... physical attack, or shoot first with us. You say it's infuriating to read my posts on this topic, but to me, it's infuriating that I have to convince you.

From my perspective, a whole ethnicity in this country is telling you they're having the same experiences, but you still think you know better.

Do you realize that this is the same discussion blacks were talking about with the police in the 80s, 70s, 60s, go back as far as you want. We're telling you this is happening to us, and people that this isn't happening to, decide we're all exaggerating, or lying, or whatever rational they want to have to dismiss the professed experiences of a whole demographic of this country.

 

^^^^ you said whites are committing the majority of crimes in this country. They should. They are 70% of the population. Blacks are about 15% of the population.

Do you think whites commit 70% of the crimes and blacks commit 15% ??

The crime rate / population ratio might have something to do with police attitudes toward various races. I don't know. Just throwing it out there.

 

And there's the problem. Since when is a preconceived attitude a just defense for killing someone unnecessarily? John Crawford was not "crime rates among blacks", he was an individual human being talking on his cell phone in Wallmart, executed while not threatening anyone. How can preconceptions be a just defense for taking the life of a person that was doing nothing to deserve death?

Men kill people much more often than women.... so if an unarmed man is shot and killed by the police, have any of you shrugged your shoulders and said "well he was a man" to justify the killing? No! You look at the individual situation without the victims sex and preconceptions as a factor. Why would this be any different when looking at a black person that's shot and killed in the same circumstance?

 

I do look at each situation individually. John Crawford should not have been shot. Period. Mike Brown -- I think his actions and only his actions led to his killing. The man in NY who was choked? horrible and was a complete overreaction by the police. This most recent shooting by the black cop? Totally justified IMO.

My words may sound harsh or that I don't care about the individuals or their families. I do. But I'm not willing to throw the blanket of racism over every shooting and pretend the actions of the victims didn't play a part (when they did -- Crawford and NY choking did not, IMO).

 

Nothing I said was a statement about how you personally feel about these shootings John, just the answer to your post saying that a cops preconceived attitudes about blacks should ever be a defense for what they do.

If we're talking about the actions of the victims, and analyzing each shooting on it's own merits, you can't brush aside the fact that the cops do often have a choice on whether to shoot or not, preconceived notions about race shouldn't come into play in that decision, yet every article, and personal story I've ever heard says blacks get shot more often than anyone else in those situations where they aren't armed and an immediate threat. Using race as a factor in how easily you shoot someone is racism.

Every time "crime in the black community" is brought up, you're (the figurative you're, not just you personally John) interjecting race into the story as a valid defense for a shooting.

 

This is the reason none of us should think we need to settle for unnecessary killings or brutality. Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus, and the way he runs his department should be the model to prove there is a problem that can be greatly improved for both the police and community it serves with some well thought out policies:

"
Police Violence Is Not Inevitable: Four Ways a California Police Chief Connected Cops With Communities
“A critical look at any institution with as much power and authority invested in it as the police is probably a good thing.”

Richmond Police Chief Chris Magnus speaks at a local event in 2012. Photo courtesy of Richmond Police Department.
Steve Early posted Nov 28, 2014
In the wake of a Missouri grand jury’s decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown, it can be difficult to imagine a place where law enforcement and a racially diverse population work together productively in the United States.

A decade ago, Richmond was about to record a homicide rate of 47 per year.
But it’s happening in Richmond, California, a gritty town in the San Francisco Bay Area best known for its massive Chevron refinery and, in previous years, for its high crime rate. While the situation in Richmond isn’t perfect, it is an example other cities can learn from.

Today, violent crime in Richmond is down. In 2013, Richmond had 16 murders—the lowest number in 33 years—and far fewer unsolved homicide cases than in previous years.

Police violence, in particular, is way down. Despite making thousands of arrests each year and confiscating one gun or more every day, the Richmond Police Department has averaged less than one officer-involved shooting per year since 2008. On September 6, The Contra Costa Times ran a story citing these and other statistics under the headline “Use of Deadly Force by Police Disappears on Richmond Streets.”

Police Chief Chris Magnus has been widely credited with enacting the reforms that led to these changes. In recognition of Richmond’s progress, and Magnus’ role in it, the U.S. Department of Justice recently added him to a panel of experts investigating the breakdown of police-community relations in Ferguson, Missouri.

That investigation continues, even though the grand jury’s decision has been released. Magnus was unable to comment about the status of that inquiry or what recommendations might result. But he did say that Brown’s death and the resulting civil unrest have had one positive effect.

“More communities are now taking a closer look at what’s going on in their own police departments and whether it meets their needs, including on issues involving race and diversity,” he observes. “A critical look at any institution with as much power and authority invested in it as the police is probably a good thing.”

Who’s Chris Magnus?
When Magnus first interviewed for the job of Richmond police chief in 2005, the city was notorious for its violent crime, youth gangs, illegal drugs, and troubled relations between police officers and city residents.

The search committee wanted to hire a new chief of police who could reduce crime by reconnecting the department to the people it served. Those vetting Magnus were impressed with his credentials as just this kind of public safety reformer.

Unfortunately for Magnus, there was the little matter of his previous posting. As police chief of Fargo, North Dakota, he hailed from one of the safest and whitest places in America. From 2004 to 2005, Fargo averaged two homicides per year, encouraging the Hollywood image of it as sleepy, small-town policing in the upper Midwest.

Richmond’s population is actually slightly smaller than Fargo’s, but its people are less wealthy and only 17 percent are white. And then there was the violence: In 2005, 40 murders were recorded in Richmond. In terms of homicides per capita, it was among the most dangerous places in the United States.

City officials in Fargo said that Magnus had been effective during his six years as police chief. Could that success be replicated in an environment with far greater racial diversity and no shortage of social dysfunction?

“I really thought Fargo would be a disqualifier for me because of the demographics of the city,” Magnus told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2005.

But Richmond’s municipal leaders, including Gayle McLaughlin, a Green Party member who has been mayor since January 2007, decided that Magnus was the right man for the job. They hired him in December 2005, when McLaughlin was still a City Council member.

Magnus took one unusual step right away. Although most Richmond police officers live outside the city, he bought a home near downtown. From there, he bicycled to work. The problem was that he could never get away from the challenges of his job. From his home he could hear police sirens late into the night, the occasional shot being fired, and members of his neighborhood association knocking on his door to report crimes.

Since marrying Terrance Cheung, a top assistant to a county supervisor, Magnus has moved to a quieter part of Richmond.

During his nine years as chief, Magnus has implemented a number of policing reforms. We spoke to him about what it took to make the Richmond Police Department into what it is today.

1. Rewarding cops for connecting with the community
Magnus began the process of change by reshuffling the department’s command structure and promoting like-minded senior officers. He also ended the practice of putting “street teams” into high crime neighborhoods, where they would “roust anybody who’s out walking around, with the idea that they might have a warrant outstanding or be holding drugs,” Magnus says.

Patrol officers’ job evaluations are now tied to their success in community engagement.
In his view, that approach only serves to “alienate the whole population that lives in those neighborhoods,” most of whom are “good people not engaged in crime.”

Patrol officers were given more regular beats and directed to spend more time on foot, rather than in squad cars. Their job evaluations and career advancement are now tied to their success in community engagement and individual relationship-building.

“We assign people for longer periods of time to specific geographic areas with the expectation that they get to know and become known by residents,” Magnus explains. “They are in and out of businesses, nonprofits, churches, a wide variety of community organizations, and they come to be seen as a partner in crime reduction.”

2. Hiring for diversity
As chief, Magnus has made it a top priority to hire and promote more women, Asians, Latinos, and African Americans.

“When you have a department that doesn’t look anything like the community it serves, you’re asking for trouble, no matter how dedicated and professional your employees are,” he says. “So an ongoing mission for us here is to hire the highest-quality people that represent that diversity of the community, across the board. I don’t even just mean from a racial, ethnic, or gender standpoint. I mean in terms of life experiences, being connected to neighborhoods, growing up either in Richmond or cities like Richmond.”

Unfortunately, the department has changed record-keeping systems since Magnus took office, which makes it difficult to compare diversity figures directly. But Magnus says the numbers are substantially improved. Today, about 60 percent of Richmond’s 182 active police officers are black, Latino, Asian, or Native American; about 40 percent are white, according to Deputy Chief Allwyn Brown.

There are now 26 female officers on the force, including highly visible leaders like Captain Bisa French and Lieutenant Lori Curran.

3. Partnering with activists and city groups


Under Magnus, the Richmond Police Department worked closely with the new city hall-based Office of Neighborhood Safety, which deploys a network of street-smart youth mentors to identify teenagers most at risk of joining gangs or engaging in gun violence. The office has enrolled scores of young men and women in a “Peacemaker Fellowship” designed to provide job training, counseling, and financial support to young people who agree to abandon a life of crime.

Mother Jones described the program as “a little like stop-and-frisk, except the profiled subjects are singled out for positive attention and opportunities.”

In a city with frequent marches and demonstrations, the department has also distinguished itself for working with community organizers to minimize tensions during street protests. And activists wary of most other law enforcement agencies have praised the RPD’s handling of large-scale disobedience, like a sit-in in 2013 at the entrance to the Chevron refinery or more recent skirmishing about the transportation of crude oil through the city by train.

Andrés Soto, a native of Richmond and a leading environmental justice campaigner, says the city has come a long way from the days when “there were not a lot of professional standards” in the hiring of new officers. Back then, he says, Richmond employed too many “ex-military, thuggish cops and rednecks” whose behavior led to costly police brutality cases and civil rights settlements.

“It can be helpful for officers to have had military experience,” Magnus points out. “But, at the same time, we also want people who can … show empathy with victims of crime, who are not afraid to smile, to get out of the police car and interact in a positive way with people, who can demonstrate emotional intelligence, who are good listeners, who have patience, who don’t feel that it takes away from their authority to demonstrate kindness.”

4. Staying away from guns
Magnus has consistently promoted new training programs and the acquisition of nonlethal weaponry, including Tasers and pepper spray, designed to minimize the use of deadly force.

Richmond is different from Ferguson in a number of ways.
Richmond now participates, along with five other cities, in the nationwide Violence Reduction Network sponsored by the United States Department of Justice. The network is supporting an upcoming seminar on “procedural justice” for members of the Richmond Police Department, which will focus, in part, on the problem of “unconscious bias” in police interactions with the public.

To conduct this training, Magnus has enlisted the services of University of South Florida criminologist Lorie Fridell, who has researched and written about the problem of law enforcement officers acting unfairly based on unconscious associations between members of racial minorities and crime.

When violence still breaks out
However well these changes have worked, police reformers in Richmond don’t get to rest on their laurels for long. On September 14, a fatal encounter took place between Wallace Jensen, an officer on foot patrol, and 24-year-old Richard Perez III. Already on probation for a previous gun incident, Perez was intoxicated and resisted arrest after a liquor store clerk reported that he had been shoplifting.

According to the responding officer, Perez tried to wrestle his gun away. The three bullets fired at Perez resulted in Richmond’s first deadly “officer-involved shooting” since 2007.

Some in the victim’s family wondered why the officer failed to use his Taser or nightstick to subdue Perez. The family retained a civil rights lawyer, who has threatened to sue the city.

Meanwhile, Perez’s aunt invited Chris Magnus to the funeral, which he and Deputy Chief Brown attended in civilian clothes. Magnus also deployed his social media skills to disseminate detailed information about parallel investigations into the incident being conducted by the RPD’s Professional Standards Unit and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office.

“One of the things we tried to convey is that we have genuine sympathy for the family and acknowledge that the death of this young man is tragic,” Magnus said, noting that the “officer involved had to make a very tough decision in a matter of seconds.”

The setting being Richmond, where the police department has worked on its relationship with residents, the incident was different from Mike Brown's shooting in a number of ways. Both Perez and Jensen were Latino speakers of Spanish. As a member of the department’s crisis negotiation team, Jensen has received regular training on how to handle volatile situations. He remains on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the two investigations into his conduct.

Even in a city held up as a model for better policing, relationships with the community are being tested once again. It took nearly a decade of change in the culture of the department and a supportive city leadership to get this far—that’s an indication of how long and difficult the road ahead will be in other places."

http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-ju...-police-chief-connected-cops-with-communities
​

 

BTW, this is the same Chief that did this...

"
Richmond police chief a prominent participant in protest against police violence




RICHMOND -- Amid the nationwide tumult over recent instances of police officers using deadly force against unarmed people, Bay Area cities like Berkeley and Oakland have been rived by impassioned protests that have at times turned violent.

But a different kind of protest popped up in Richmond on Tuesday, and at the vanguard of the gathering calling for a reduction in police violence in communities of color was an unlikely participant: Richmond's police chief.

"I've never seen anything like it, not in Richmond, not anywhere," said longtime resident Mary Square, who stood on the north side of Macdonald Avenue watching the protesters on the south side of the street. "All these police, and the police chief, holding signs calling for an end to police violence. ... I'm going to tell my kids."

Richmond Chief of Police Chris Magnus stands with demonstrators along Macdonald Ave. to protest the Michael Brown and Eric Garner deaths during a peaceful demonstration in Richmond, Calif., on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group) ( Kristopher Skinner )
About 100 protesters lined Macdonald Avenue at 41st Street by noon Tuesday, holding signs and listening to a stereo that boomed speeches by Martin Luther King Jr.

Police Chief Chris Magnus, who has drawn acclaim for his community-policing approach and helping drive down both crime and use of force by his officers in recent years, was front and center, facing the street while holding a white sign that said "#blacklivesmatter." The photo quickly went viral on social media, the image of the uniformed chief with the popular hashtag a stark contrast to the anti-police sentiment many associate with it.

"I spoke with my command staff, and we agreed it would be nice to convey our commitment to peaceful protest and that black and brown lives do matter," Magnus said after the protest. "And to help bridge the gap that we understand sometimes exists between police and community around certain issues."

 

Disturbing video of a man, in handcuffs, beating a police officer. Pretty sure this is in England, where only a percentage of police have weapons (no idea if this female officer did). Also, no idea why he's handcuffed in the front, but as you can see from the video, that's a big mistake.

If there was no camera and the police officer shot and killed him, people would argue that he was cuffed and couldn't hurt her, therefore shouldn't have been shot. Obviously not true.

 

That was very hard to watch

 

Department of Justice Investigation of Ferguson is out. The results don't shock me, but should make anyone that doubted racism being a huge factor in events like these recent shootings rethink their position...

 

^^^ I don't doubt racism exists, but I don't give any credit to any DOJ report. It's become a political branch. Can't wait for Holder to leave.

 

No doubt Department of Justice is often used for political reasons, but you can't disregard this, unless they just fabricated these findings. Politics didn't create these emails, they just unearthed them

 

^^^ should they be sending jokes during work time? No. Should they be sending racial jokes? No. Does it happen in just about every profession across the country, every day? Yes.